Winter of the World

‘I’m going to Spain with you and Lenny Griffiths,’ Dave said.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Lloyd. ‘You’re fifteen.’

‘Boys my age fought in the Great War.’

‘But they were no use – ask your father. Anyway, who says I’m going?’

‘Your sister, Millie,’ Dave said, and he walked on.

Boy said: ‘What do people usually drink in this place, Williams?’

Lloyd thought Boy did not need any more alcohol, but he replied: ‘Pints of best bitter for the men and port-and-lemon for the girls.’

‘Port-and-lemon?’

‘It’s port diluted with lemonade.’

‘How perfectly ghastly.’ Boy disappeared.

The comedian reached the climax of the act. ‘I said to him, “You fool, that’s the wrong passage !” ’ She, or he, went off to gales of applause.

Millie appeared in front of Lloyd. ‘Hello,’ she said. She looked at Daisy. ‘Who’s your friend?’

Lloyd was glad Millie looked so pretty, in her sophisticated black dress, with a row of fake pearls and a discreet touch of make-up. He said: ‘Miss Peshkov, allow me to present my sister, Miss Leckwith. Millie, this is Daisy.’

They shook hands. Daisy said: ‘I’m very glad to meet Lloyd’s sister.’

‘Half-sister, to be exact,’ said Millie.

Lloyd explained: ‘My father was killed in the Great War. I never knew him. My mother married again when I was still a baby.’

‘Enjoy the show,’ Millie said, turning away; then, as she left, she murmured to Lloyd: ‘Now I see why Ruby Carter has no chance.’

Lloyd groaned inwardly. His mother had obviously told the whole family that he was romancing Ruby.

Daisy said: ‘Who’s Ruby Carter?’

‘She’s a maid at Chimbleigh. You gave her the money to see a dentist.’

‘I remember. So her name is being romantically linked with yours.’

‘In the imagination of my mother, yes.’

Daisy laughed at his discomfiture. ‘So you’re not going to marry a housemaid.’

‘I’m not going to marry Ruby.’

‘She might suit you very well.’

Lloyd gave her a direct look. ‘We don’t always fall in love with the most suitable people, do we?’

She looked at the stage. The show was approaching its end, and the entire cast was beginning a familiar song. The audience joined in enthusiastically. The standing customers at the back linked arms and swayed in time, and Boy’s party did likewise.

When the curtain came down, Boy still had not reappeared. ‘I’ll look for him,’ Lloyd said. ‘I think I know where he might be.’ The Gaiety had a ladies’ toilet, but the men’s was a back yard with an earth closet and several halved oil drums. Lloyd found Boy puking into one of the drums.

He gave Boy a handkerchief to wipe his mouth, then took his arm and led him through the emptying theatre and outside to the Daimler limousine. The others were waiting. They all got in and Boy immediately fell asleep.

When they got back to the West End, Andy Fitzherbert told the driver to go first to the Murray house, in a modest street near Trafalgar Square. Getting out of the car with May, he said: ‘You lot go on. I’ll see May to her door then walk home.’ Lloyd presumed that Andy was planning a romantic goodnight on May’s doorstep.

They drove on to Mayfair. As the car was approaching Grosvenor Square, where Daisy and Eva were living, Jimmy told the chauffeur: ‘Just stop at the corner, please.’ Then he said quietly to Lloyd: ‘I say, Williams, would you mind taking Miss Peshkov to the door, and I’ll follow with Fräulein Rothmann in half a minute?’

‘Of course.’ Jimmy wanted to kiss Eva goodnight in the car, obviously. Boy would know nothing about it: he was snoring. The chauffeur would pretend to be oblivious in the expectation of a tip.

Lloyd got out of the car and handed Daisy out. When she grasped his hand he got a thrill like a mild electric shock. He took her arm and they walked slowly along the pavement. At the midpoint between two street lamps, where the light was dimmest, Daisy stopped. ‘Let’s give them time,’ she said.

Lloyd said: ‘I’m so glad Eva has a paramour.’

‘Me, too.’

He took a breath. ‘I can’t say the same about you and Boy Fitzherbert.’

‘He got me presented at court!’ Daisy said. ‘And I danced with the King in a nightclub – it was in all the American newspapers.’

‘And that’s why you’re courting him?’ Lloyd said incredulously.

‘Not only. He likes all the things I do – parties and racehorses and beautiful clothes. He’s such fun! He even has his own airplane.’

‘None of that means anything,’ Lloyd said. ‘Give him up. Be my girlfriend instead.’

She looked pleased, but she laughed. ‘You’re crazy,’ she said. ‘But I like you.’

‘I mean it,’ he said desperately. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you, even though you’re the last person in the world I should marry.’

She laughed again. ‘You say the rudest things! I don’t know why I talk to you. I guess I think you’re nice under your clumsy manners.’

‘I’m not really clumsy – only with you.’

‘I believe you. But I’m not going to marry a penniless socialist.’